Re: Modelling in CS and Physics

["U't Say" <utsay@yahoo.com>]

   Greetings,

   Compare to Physics and its thousand years of maturity, software
engineering is still in the early infancy. But even so, if we look back
when software is nothing but 2-bits values to represent the simple
arithmetic operations up to now, it's undeniable that software has a much
longer stride in its pace. I believe your answer is awaiting just beyond
the next software evolution, after the so-called "software design
patterns".

   If you have not already, I hope that you will enjoy the "Design
Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" from the "big
four" (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides). The
book has a nice foreword by Grady Booch.

   Warmest regards,
   UtSay
---

--- Aiviet Nguyen <aiviet2@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
>    We have not discussed meta-science since a long time. Today, I would
> like to chat a not so meta-scientific but still somewhat
> meta-technologic topics: modelling in CS vs the one in Physics.
> 
>    Modelling in CS ( more exactly in Sofware Engineering) is still a
> very adhoc task. People are talking about the Art of Object-Oriented
> Design. There is no unique procedure. The Design depends heavily on the
> experience of the architects. There are tools like 
> E-R diagram techniques, Shaler-Melosh, Rumbaugh,...Still they are not
> derivable from first principles as in the best modelling discipline,
> Physics.
> 
>    Perhaps, because Physics is an old discipline and physicists have
> learned from generation to generation how to become masters in
> modelling. But in fact, modelling in Physics is already a procedure.
> You just have to choose the first principle and bingo: it's matter of
> carrying out the calculation.
> 
>     Since Wigner ( the longest lived gentleman physicist), the
> principles have been known as symmetries. Symmetries can be observed
> from a give domain of knowledge. If your observations, data say that
> there are some regularities a careful and methodical analysis on the
> data can suggest a symmetry
> (exact or approximated one).
> 
>    The objects in Physics then can be defined as representations (
> multiplets) of the found symmetry group. The quantum numbers are the
> eigenvalues of the Casimirs operators... Everything is straightforward.
> 
> 
>    A beautiful example is the classification of particles based just on
> the Poincare symmetry. From a simple observation of the regularities
> which can be observed by even our ancesters in the Stone Age like 
> isotropy and homogeneity of space-time, particles come
> out to be characterized by mass and spin in a beautiful hierarchy. In
> my opinion the glory belongs to Wigner.
> Another example is the unitary symmetries of Heisenberg and Gell-Mann.
> 
>    Since then, modelling in Physics became a technology. In any Theory
> of Everything if you postulate a symmetry, the objects in the modell
> are identified. You can decide to consider a part of it in a given
> application.
> 
>     My question here is whether we can develope a similar procedure in
> Sofware Engineering beyond the adhoc E-R diagrams. Is there any
> principal reason to prevent us from doing that? Because starting points
> of CS and Physics are different? What are they?
> 
>     If yes, I would go back to the old question I have raised long ago
> about objectification and structural program ( for example, C++-ization
> a C program). If the analogue works perfectly, all we can do is to find
> a symmetry ( based on data analysis). There should be some program to
> take the symmetry group and the C program as inputs and C++ program
> together with its objects will come out wonderfully.
> 
>     And we can make a lot of money :-)) Reality or just a
> meta-technological dream, I don't know for a moment. But it is always
> worth thinking. Any creation start from a meta idea like this.
> 
> Cheers
> Aiviet

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